The French Kitchen by Serge Dansereau

It’s been a while since we’ve all looked at French cookery as inspiring, what with all the books on Italian, Brazilian, Scandinavian and even British food that’ve been catching our interest recently. The ideas and strict disciplines behind French cooking seem to have been shelved for easy, breezy recipes that are simpler to follow and rely on great ingredients rather than complex hard-to-learn techniques.

Serge Dansereau’s book therefore, comes as a welcome new look at traditional French style. His Canadian/French heritage, when combined with the no-fuss moves of his adopted Australian homeland (he owns and cooks in The Bather’s Pavillion restaurant in New South Wales) has resulted in a book that makes you want to cook veal blanquette and croquembouche again.

I have lined up to serve rhubarb charlotte to middleagedad this weekend (charlottes! I’d almost forgotten they existed) and have already tried the bircher muesli recipe to great success (it’s damn hard to find a good wet muesli recipe). I am also eying up the caramelised honey granola after having bought it for a stonkingly high price at my local deli recently.

It’s a good looking book, with nice photos and a handy ‘variations’ section under each recipe to encourage experimentation. An excellent present for a foodie or cookery book collector, it’s out on the 15th July 2011 at £25.


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